Land clearing, building regulations leading to 'false sense of security'

Lorna Edwards

RESIDENTS had taken to chainsaws in Kinglake long before yesterday's State Government's announcement giving land owners greater freedoms to remove trees around their properties without council permits.

''People are scared and they want to make sure it is safe,'' said Kinglake West resident Steve Werner, who believes it was the cleared hectares surrounding his house on his 22-hectare property that saved it from the flames of Black Saturday.

''I'm the landowner and if I need to protect my property, I'll take down trees.''

Premier John Brumby announced the so-called ''10-30 rule'' yesterday, which allows residents to clear trees within 10 metres of their houses and shrubs and ground fuel for 30 metres, but Mr Werner said locals had already started removing trees they considered dangerous.

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The 10-metre rule did not go far enough as trees in the area were 20 metres high and would still fall on houses, he said.

Murrindindi Shire Mayor Lyn Gunter said she did not think fire-affected residents would use their new clearing rights to denude bush towns of greenery and create barren landscapes. ''I think most people are fairly balanced in what they do and they'll look at their own home and do what they need to protect themselves,'' she said.

But environment groups have questioned whether the new clearing rights would have any fire protection benefits and said Victoria was already the most cleared state in Australia.

''A 10-metre area around a house being cleared is not going to stop a 300-foot-tall wall of flame and I don't want to see people get a false sense of security from taking these measures that are not going to save lives,'' said forestry spokesman for the Australian Conservation Foundation Lindsay Hesketh.

Under the Government's changes, people will also be allowed to collect firewood from roadside reserves for two weeks before planned burns. Federal MP Fran Bailey has called for community ''armies'' to take charge of clearing fuel from roadsides before the coming fire season.

But the Municipal Association of Victoria is concerned about the clearing of significant vegetation from roadsides. ''Roadsides retain some of the most significant remnant vegetation, so we need to tread very carefully,'' said MAV chief Rob Spence.

The Victorian National Parks Association expressed fears that allowing firewood to be collected could lead to opportunistic broad-scale clearing.

''In some parts of the state, roadsides are the only examples of continuous vegetation left and the proposal on firewood collections needs a little more thought,'' association executive director Matt Ruchel said.

The new changes will apply across the state except for 20 metropolitan councils that will retain existing rules.

At the Bushfires Royal Commission yesterday, residents of bushfire-prone areas were warned that new building standards could not guarantee the survival of houses or people, and that bushfire bunkers could not guarantee the survival of occupants.

The Master Builders Association of Victoria said the primary role of a home was to ''shield its inhabitants from normal weather conditions, not natural disasters''.

Executive director of the association Brian Welch told the commission yesterday it was an individual's choice to respond how they saw fit to a looming bushfire, but he recommended leaving early.

Mr Welch said the new bushfire building standards were making people overconfident in the ability of a house that met those standards to withstand a bushfire.